After the Grand Canyon tour we hurried back to the hotel to get ready for our fancy dinner reservation at Michael Mina, our first ever one Michelin star rated restaurant. We had been looking forward to this dinner before we left Bahrain. We were lucky enough to have a friend of ours put in a word for us with his former colleague who worked there.

The gorgeous Japanese garden set up in the foyer of the Bellagio, surrounded by it's many eateries - Micheal Mina being one of them.

The fragrant smell of fresh flowers was so lusciously intoxicating.

We arrived dressed to the nines (I even broke in my Louboutins for the occasion) and were greeted with complementary champagne and congratulated on our upcoming wedding. We were then promptly seated at a lovely table over looking the pool :) It was all so nice and fancy!

Complementary champagne, as incredible as it sounds, it only got better from there.

Our starter was a domestic caviar parfait; alder wood-smoked salmon, creme fraîche, shallot potato cake served with a frozen shot of Belvedere vodka. This was my favourite dish of the evening, the flavours were so delicate and complementing and it had such wonderful texture and balance. Yum!

We decided that we had to go with the Signature tasting menu, paired with premium wine selection (we were celebrating of course!).

Ari with Chilean sea bass in a miso glaze, dashi broth served with shellfish dumpling.

Before each meal the Sommelier (fancy smancy word for wine guy) would come and pour us a new glass of wine, explain the flavours and point out the complexities that make it pair well with the next dish. I'm fairly certain that the pours were overly generous as I began to feel super tipsy after our third dish.

Braised short rib, roasted root vegetables served with sylvetta (rocket). I was well and truly stuffed by this stage. Just desserts to go!

Celebratory (and complementary) truffles before dessert!

Thankfully I didn't need to make the difficult decision of choosing one of the three decadent desserts as we were served a tasting of all of them :) Chocolate whiskey cake with salted caramel, candied hazelnuts and cocoa ice cream, root beer float with sassafras ice cream served with warm chocolate chip pecan cookies and strawberry crème fraiche panna cotta. Amazing!

Spoilt with all the dessert choices.

We really felt special and the whole dining experience was wonderful, so much so we didn't realise three hours had past and we were running late for our Cirque du Soleil with the rest of the gang. We paid the bill, hopped into a cab and ran ourselves over to the MGM Grand to see Zumanity which we had bought half price tickets for. We made it just in time to see the opening act, albeit standing as the show had started and we needed to wait for a break before being shown our seats.

The show was absolutely fantastic and got even better when a half naked performer dropped into Ari's lap and dragged him (I use the term loosely since he appeared more than willing lol) onto the stage for the grand finale. I was beside myself, half mortified and half in hysterics. She proceeded to unbutton his shirt, lay him down and straddle him on stage! He later told me that it was "trick perspective", to which I naively believed him haha... She totally violated my fiance! lol

Plucked from the audience by a scantily clad contortionist... Every boys fantasy and every girls worst nightmare. "Trick perspective" my ass... or hers rather haha

This was one amazingly unforgettable experience, with dinner and the show to top off a huge day at the Grand Canyon also! And even though we ate at a few more Michelin star restaurants on our trip, I think Michael Mina was our favourite overall.

Whilst in Las Vegas, we booked a day tour to see the Grand Canyon and since we were time poor we splashed out to fly there. We were picked up by bus in the morning from our hotels and shuttled to the airport.

On the plane, we were assigned specific seats to distribute the load. The big boys Ari and Rob were seated at the back.

The Canyon from the air.

The plane ride was far from pleasant, it was a touch gusty and our little plane did nothing but bounce around the whole way, although the view helped ease the nauseating feeling. I was so relieved we landed... We boarded another bus and then all of a sudden there was the massive canyon in view.

Ari and Linda taking in the Grand Canyon.

The photos really don't do it justice, Ari taking a photo of James taking photo.

It was really very difficult to appreciate the splendor and magnitude of it all.

The canyon went on and on as far as the eye could see. It almost felt as though we were looking at a huge backdrop poster. Ari and I couldn't put our finger on what it was about the canyon that failed to really impress us.

Does it even look real?

We had our boxed lunch while gazing off into the distance in I guess quiet bewilderment. I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed that I didn't feel awe-inspired by it.

The Grand Canyon.

Sunny but chilly.

Clouds creating some contrast over the Grand Canyon.

Perhaps it was due to the short time frame we allocated to visiting the canyon or maybe because we weren't down at the bottom being immersed in it. All you could really do was look over the edge at it, and it was beautiful but a bit too static for our taste.

One thing we had planned to do well in advance was to drive a convoy of convertibles from San Diego to Las Vegas. The basis of our whole pre-wedding trip was so that Ari could have his bucks party in Vegas, so we decided to arrive there in style.

We returned the sensible Ford Fusions and hired out two Camaros and a Mustang. Plenty of drama at the hire car place as even though we had made reservations, there were no convertibles available so we waited around for an hour until they were. Then Nath and Ferg's ended up with a flat tyre before they even got out so we waited again. We somehow managed to lose Rob and Annie from the convoy right from the get go, but managed to gain the lovely Dingeys later in the day.

Nath and Ferg looking super cool in their racy red Camaro.

We made a pitstop for lunch in Riverside at ProAbition Kitchen & Whiskey Lounge where we were joined by the Dingeys. After lunch, we drove in towards Las Vegas with the intent of visiting Calico, a ghost town turned tourist attraction along the way.

There's James and Tara with Nath and Ferg.

And the Dingeys who missed out on a convertible but at least got matching red car.

The weather turned bad but we still kept the roof down and just turned up the heating :)

Las Vegas here we come!

We got to Calico while it was closing, so late that there was no one at the ticket counter so we just meandered through for 10 minutes and continued on our way.

We made it just in time, although I don't think we missed much.

Our convertible convoy.

We rolled into Las Vegas at dusk and did a lap of The Strip before returning the cars.

Everything was so flashy flashy and bright.

After returning the car to the airport, Ari and I walked an hour back to the Bellagio past the famous Las Vegas sign.

We also stopped outside a little white chapel momentarily to contemplate if we got married here first would our guests coming to Hawaii be more outraged or more disappointed.

From Los Angeles we hired cars and took the scenic route down to San Diego. Before we left though we downed some gigantic pancakes at the Griddle Cafe.

Super sized pancakes at The Griddle Cafe, Sunset Blvd.

We stopped for lunch at Huntington Beach, where Nath and Ferg had a pitcher of cider each which required us to take a super emergency restroom stop twenty minutes into resuming the road trip. We arrived later that afternoon and had a quiet evening exploring the surrounds of Pacific Beach on foot.

The next day, we celebrated James' birthday with lunch, followed by a long walk around Balbao Park and a segway tour around the marina.

Birthday lunch at Searsucker on Market St.

Free slice of cake! Yay!

Balboa Park.

The selfless group selfie, Ari took the shot but totally missed himself haha.

Safety first.

We zipped along looking as touristy as we could while taking in the sights along Harbor Drive all the way up to Marina Park and back. It was everyone's first time and we had a blast going as a group.

Ari and the USS Midway, the longest-serving Navy aircraft carrier of the 20th century now a museum.

And we're Segway racing, Ari wins!

Look mum, no hands on the Broadway Pier.

Rob, Nath, Ari and the birthday boy James sharing a moment.

The Gaslamp Quarter.

We stuck around for happy hour and fish tacos at the Gaslamp Quarter and turned in early for our big road trip to Las Vegas the next day. Happy birthday James, we're glad we got celebrate this one with you!

We spent one of our days in Los Angeles at the famous Venice Beach where we met up with the Dingeys. Some of the more adventurous boys rode hire bikes from our accommodation in WeHo all the way down while the rest of us took easy Uber rides. We walked all the way from one end to the other.

Ari and Linda on Venice beach pier.

View from the pier.

Past Linda doing max pull ups.. Two! Better than current Linda who can barely lift herself off a chair haha

It was a bit too cold for us to go in the water or even sun bake really but that didn't deter hoards of people from doing so. We headed towards Santa Monica along the boulevard, there were so many people out on their bikes, roller blades and skate boards, families and their dogs, circus people practicing on the lawn, topless muscle men working out and people doing stunts on slack lines, it felt so lively!

The gang at Muscle Beach.

Now show us them guns.

We had happy hour on a rooftop bar on Santa Monica pier as the sun set and the wind picked up and it became bone numbingly cold. Unprepared for this change in weather we adorn ourselves with beach towels and what little garments we had. When we could bare the cold no longer we went downstairs inside for some pizzas.

Ari and Ferg keeping warm.

Later that night we went to a comedy show at the Laugh Factory called Chocolate Sundae (because it was Sunday and all the comedians were African American). The funniest part of the evening came from an exchange with a disgruntled heckling lady in the audience who took offense to a dog kicking joke. She proceeded to rant about how her dog was better than most people to which she was brutally and shamelessly ridiculed and berated by the comedian on stage and booed by her fellow audience members. Classic!